With a half decent winter lifting and a very successful sweet spot round I am now two weeks from finishing the 16 weeks Weights and Sweet Spot. I just performed the 2 X 20 threshold workout earlier this week and nailed the first interval right at 320w which was where I was about 4 weeks ago. I slammed the second interval to see where I was at now and was pleased to achieve a avg of 352W. So I got my notification on TP that my new FTP is now 334 which is great.
So then, should I continue training with all my workouts and zones based around a FTP of 305 (FTP that was established on March 15th) or should I change all my zones and start training at my new FTP?? I will include my latest 2 X 20 threshold file as well as my Sweet Spot workout yesterday for reference.
Thanks for all the advice and feedback, I am hoping my races in May are still going to run and until then I will continue to Sweet Spot.
What plan will be you be doing following this? Most likely that would start with a field test so that is when you should make final adjustments with your FTP. My guess however is you have this weekend and one more week with your current plan before yo would test your FTP. Personally I’m always hesitant to jump FTP up by that much all at once, maybe start by splitting the difference for the weekend and see how that goes. Could it be that high, absolutely! You did 352 watts for 20 minutes and it was a second effort!
What was your heart rate for the field test on March 15th? What was you hear rate for the recent effort? Hard to see on Garmin connect and also looks like it wasn’t quite working the whole time. Has your heart rate and perceived exertion drop quite a bit during sweet spot efforts over the course of the last 4 weeks? That can be a good sign as well that your FTP is much higher as well.
Kind of one of those things where you want to see the whole picture not just one effort. Let’s say you finish off next week and perform the field test again and get a similar result that is a sign that yes your FTP has gone up that much and you need to make that adjustment to your training zones.
Remember as well FTP is the power you can sustain for an hour. Do you feel like you could hold 335 watts right now for an hour? Honesty your power average from the last 2 x 20 minute threshold effort was probably not far off.
So first of all I don’t have a plan to follow quite yet. I was considering the Marathon MTB plan since I am still trying to compete in the Gunnison Growler in about 6 weeks (hoping it stays running). I have also considered a cycling coach but I am very cost sensitive right now.
As for my heart rate: for March 15th the AVG was 183… and for April 14th you’re right, my Wahoo Tickr must have not been working properly because I noticed it not acting accurately during the test but couldn’t stop to fix it. I will say that even during my last interval I remember feeling more in control and tame than March 15th. This was the first test that I performed outdoors with power meter pedals and I liked that even though it had its challenges too. I started out for the first 15 min trying to hold 345 and then ended with 5 min harder and the last 1-2 were around 400.
You are also correct that my plan ends in 12 days with the last day of this current plan being a threshold test on a tuesday.
So the threshold efforts were outdoors compared to the test that indoors? That would explain some of the increase as well. Sometimes riders can have a FTP that is up to if not more than 5% lower indoors compared to outdoors. Typically indoors you are hotter, heart rate is higher and perceived exertion is higher. So this explains a lot. So I would be careful about adjusting your FTP too high if you will be doing most of the upcoming workouts indoors. If you are going outdoors mostly you probably find yourself able to complete intervals with the higher zones.
Mason,
For the earlier FTP test, did you measure power using the same power meter pedals? Or take the power reported by your smart trainer? This is another potential source of difference between the two.
The March and April tests were both recorded using my Assiomo Duo pedals. Thank you for the question though, indoors I train with a Tacx FLux 2 and I am almost certain there are noticeable differences in power between the two but I tend to think a pedal power meter will always have the edge on accuracy. Even when I perform my workouts indoor I don’t even use the trainers signal for power I still sync my pedals for consistency.